One Step At A Time
by KaydenceRei
Summary: One day he's trying to kill her and the next they're partners. They aren't friends and the trust isn't quite there yet, but amicable respect is enough to get by for now. Budapest changes everything when SHIELD isn't answering and Clint is captured, but she owes him a debt and one way or another she'll pay it back. (Or... how Natasha goes from an enemy and becomes Auntie Nat.)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I own a pair of socks with a hole where my big toe should be. That is all.

Everyone has different interpretations on Clint and Natasha, or Clintasha, or BlackHawk, or whatever the suave kids call it. Mine is much more platonic and always has been, but **AoU** reinforced the ideal. So let's say we slip into the past, hm? See how we get from a Red Room Murderess to Auntie Nat?

 **One Step At A Time** :

They weren't friends. Not really. Truth be told, she didn't know a single personal thing about her partner, Clint Barton. She only knew that one truly bad night where she was being chased and hunted by multiple organizations, she had been _sloppy_.

 _Two years prior..._

 _Contrary to popular belief, being her own boss wasn't as cracked up as most people would imagine. Her boss_ sucked _. Natalia Romanova was someone who spent her whole life following orders to a tee. Always perfect. Always better. She learned to not just be the best, but to be the unexpected. When everyone wanted you dead then you simply couldn't run forever. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, yet before the end of the year she had let the best of the bunch finally catch up because, well...running was just so damned exhausting._

 _The truth about that truth is that it hurt. People lie to make things better and she was no exception, but when Clint came down that alleyway on a rainy night, she could tell that he could see the lie. She wasn't simply giving up, she was going down with a fight and she merely wanted to make sure that if, in fact she did die then at least it would be a worthy death. She knew it and he knew it. It was the only way that people like themselves would ever let their life slip through their fingers._

 _She left her guns on either of her hips and he left the bow on his back. They were like two opposite forces of nature colliding. Her arm met his arm in a clash. Her knee met his thigh. Blows upon blows, each one being blocked and returned with equal fervor. The game seemed endless. She trained for these moments and eventually people slipped up, but the only problem now was that it turned out to be her. Nearly a year of running had given him the advantage and she realized it too late as her fist met his face and then his gut. He allowed those blows to land. He allowed her to think she caught him off guard and instead it turned out to be her who was caught off guard. Suddenly his hands caught her ankle and her leg twisted at an angle that caused it to snap within seconds under the constant pressure._

 _Not that she was so easily ended. She swiped her viable leg out and took him to the ground next to her, then she pulled an arrow from his sheath and slammed it full force into his thigh. It turned out that he wasn't so easily ended either. She had rolled over, knees on either side of his legs as she pulled the knife from her boot and raised it up above his chest. Before she had a chance to land the attack, he arched up and his forehead hit her nose. Her head reared back and hit the brick wall. For just a moment the outer edges of her vision went black and by the time she could focus again he had yanked the arrow from his leg and the bloody tip was dangerously close to her throat._

 _She took a shuttering breath, quirked an eyebrow up, and then waited as she looked him in the eyes. It was everlasting and uncertain but his eyes were studying her without reprieve. It wasn't the typical way men looked at her. There wasn't lust or desire lurking within shadows of his eyes...there was just a brief moment as he seemed to have an internal debate inside his mind. The reality was that it was probably only a minute of both of them breathing heavily before he finally spoke, "There's a reason you didn't win." It caused both of her eyebrows to raise up almost indefinitely but she didn't bother to respond to the comment. Instead she merely waited for whatever explanation he planned to give. "You have nothing left. You're hollowed out, bled dry." There it was. "It doesn't have to be that way." The brief flicker of confusion must have crossed her features before she narrowed her eyes and drove it behind the mask because he continued, "You have red in your ledger. But you can wipe it out." Her head tilted ever so slightly and caused the bloody tip of the arrow to touch the skin of her neck. She watched him staring and she supposed he was expecting her to say something. The look that flashed over his features looked like one of minor frustration when she only answered with further silence. "You're not dead, not yet, so you could at least do me the courtesy of listening."_

 _Her lips slanted into a coy smile at his words. "I am listening," she replied curtly. She watched the way his brow ruffled in response. "I just don't believe you," she tacked on for good measure. She rolled her shoulders and blew out a small sigh before she rested her head back on the brick wall lazily. "But please, do tell me how one wipes out the red from their ledger," she requested in a too polite tone that caused his eyes to narrow further, "I'm waiting, Agent Barton."_

 _If he was surprised by the fact that she knew his name then it never showed. "One step at a time," was the answer he gave her. It wasn't the answer she was expecting and her smile quickly diminished at the words. She was expecting him to give some hilariously drawn-out answer about the greater good and doing the right thing, not five syllables in just as many words. The confusion only grew greater when he removed the arrow from where it was pointed at her neck and then he sat down beside her with his own back against the wall. "I'm thinking you at least have enough honor not to stab me with that knife like you're thinking about," were his next words. She supposed it was effective because it caused her twitching fingers to lower the knife that she had begun to lift._

" _Honor?" she questioned with a cold laugh, "what makes you think I have any?" A smirk was the only reply that she received and she huffed out another sigh before she gave a slight sideways nod of her head. "Very well. I'm listening," she assured him with only the tiniest amount of interest. She watched him stare at her out of the corner of her eye and she finally turned her head to face him before she spoke one more word, "Sincerely."_

 _He took her answer for what it was worth, which she assumed really wasn't all that much, and then he shrugged. "It's not easy, in fact I've been at it for years. The grim fact is that people like you and I may not ever wipe out the entire ledger," came his honest explanation._

 _It caused another raise of an eyebrow from her and she gave a curt smile. "Is that supposed to convince me to join the clean ledger crusade?" and her tone was nothing if not mocking, "because you may want to work on your pep talk, it's pretty crappy, Agent Barton." He seemed at least mildly amused by her words. "Why are you doing this?" she finally asked._

" _Doing what?" She glared at him now and he was smiling just a tiny bit. If he was trying to annoy her then he was certainly succeeding. "Alright, it's because I think people should get at least one chance to be somebody else, to be something different."_

" _I take it someone gave you that chance," she stated. His nod of agreement was near imperceptible. "Then tell me this. Why me?" she asked next._

" _You were making a last stand, Romanova. That's what this was, right?" She entertained the thought, shrugged, then gave another sideways nod. "Then stand a little longer." He made it sound so simple. "Join SHIELD."_

 _She couldn't help the sardonic look that plagued her face after that. "That's hilarious," she mumbled out with a tiny and sarcastic laugh. He didn't smile. Didn't laugh. "You're serious?" and apparently he was. She closed her eyes for a moment as she shook her head in sheer disbelief, "Your job is to kill me and where I come from, if you make another choice then you're forfeiting your own life."_

" _Oh I'll be in trouble, but they won't kill me."_

" _Is that so?"_

 _He smirked. "They value a good asset, so unless you go in there and start a massacre then I'll be just fine." She watched him stand and then he held a hand out to her. "The question is, do you want to keep running or start living?" He was the first person to ask her what she wanted to do; to ask her what_ she _wanted._

 _She took his hand and got to her feet, ignoring that pained ankle that was either broken or fracture. "I'll try to contain myself," and she was only half-kidding but he smiled nonetheless._

Changing from Natalia Romanova to Natasha Romanoff was simple given that she changed names like most people changed clothes. It didn't bother her in the least, in fact she preferred the Americanized name if she was being completely honest with herself. It was a choice she made for herself rather than one that had been made for her. It had been a year and a half since Clint brought her to SHIELD and although the organization was wary of her they had kept her. He hadn't been wrong. They valued assets and she was one of the most valuable they could ever get their hands on. She hadn't hesitated to let Nick Fury know that _she_ knew that and apparently...he liked her 'spunk'. Later on she had admitted to Clint that she didn't even know she had spunk. The archer had _actually_ laughed aloud at her.

They were partners of circumstance because SHIELD didn't trust her on her own. Clint was stuck with her until they deemed her trustworthy enough for solo missions, not that the irony of 'trust' wasn't lost on her in a house of spies and killers. They were an effective combination. Fire and ice. Earth and wind. She was close-proximity and he was long-range. Even Nick Fury couldn't deny that they were a force to be reckoned with, but she didn't _feel_ different and it didn't seem like anything at all had changed. Espionage. Assassinations. Seductions for the sake of interrogations or assassinations. She did the same things but for better reasons, or at least that was how she saw it. She wasn't wiping red from her ledger, she was adding to it. She was carving herself more hollow and she was still being bled dry.

Day, after day, after day.

And she sincerely hated Budapest, Hungary. It was mid-June and the temperature was in the triple digits even in the midst of the night. Never before had they had any _real_ problems on a mission and yet suddenly here they were, running from a lab in the middle of the night with a shower of bullets spraying at their feet behind them, or at least she thought it was at _their_ feet. She tucked her head into her arms and dove through a window that brought her out of the building, but when she rolled to her feet and she looked around, Clint wasn't there. _Clint wasn't there._ She looked around wildly and then back up at the window just in time to see his face disappear as he was yanked away. He had been motioning for her to keep running.

At first she did run, but just far enough to enter, or break into a building depending on how one chose to word it, so that she could use the distress button on her wristband to communicate with SHIELD. "This is Agent Romanoff, Agent Coulson, do you copy?" Nothing. She grunted and shook her wrist to try and make it work, ignoring the searing pain that reverberated through her shoulder as she did so. "Base, this is Romanoff, do you copy?" Again, she got no response, not even static. She tapped the stupid wristband as if that would actually have some miraculous effect on the piece of shit technology. "This is Agent Romanoff, does _anybody_ copy?" After the third round of silence she threw the useless thing down on the ground, then leaned against the wall to take a deep and shuttering breath. She glanced down the silent street before she looked back to the _supposedly_ abandoned lab. Clint was still in there, captured most likely, given that he still wasn't down here with her.

No, they weren't friends, not really. They had an amicable partnership sure, and what it lacked in friendship and trust was made up for in respect. The simple fact of the matter was that whether she believed he had actually saved her back then or not, she owed him a debt. She couldn't justify it to herself to leave him in some Hungarian lab while she ran away. Her eyes flickered again to her safe escape down the street and then back to the lab one last time. He believed she had at least a little bit of honor even if she couldn't find it herself. "Bozhe moi..." she murmured in her native tongue as she checked the clips of her guns. It wasn't much but she supposed that it was going to have to do. She kept the guns gripped in her hands at her sides and walked her way back to the front door of the lab. It wasn't as though stealth was necessary at this point. A moment later she booted the door open with one swift kick and aimed her guns to either side of her, firing a shot from each without hesitation. Both shots rang true as the guards to her immediate left and right both dropped to the floor with blood dripping from the small holes in their foreheads.

Natasha ran through the hall, firing again when the next assailant came around the corner, and she dropped him without issue as well. Two more men, two more shots. She tossed the gun in her left hand aside, knowing it was already finished and she was left with only one gun with one bullet. She slipped it back into the holster at her waist, saving that single bullet for an emergency as she rounded the corner, slipping two knives from the sleeves of her catsuit and jumping the man who aimed his gun at her. She planted the knives in his chest and forced him to the ground with her full weight as she did so. She yanked the knives back out of him and quickly got back to her feet, continuing down the hall at a quick pace. She heard the footsteps and she paused at the T-intersection and waited. The moment the next guy came around the corner she slammed the knife into his chest in a clothesline maneuver. Then another man rounded, she used another knife and another clothesline maneuver.

Before she got the chance to retrieve her weapons another two men came from each direction. She raised an eyebrow up as she glanced between them both. "Easy boys," she said softly, raising both bloodied hands in surrender. She could see them visibly relax as they came up on either side of her and before they had a chance to react she had her arms around one guys neck and she swung her legs up around the head of the second. She used all the force that she could muster to twist her body and drag them both to the ground with sickening _snaps_ of their necks. It took half a second to catch her breath and untangle herself from the two men and as she did so she glanced in each direction of the T-intersection, trying to decide where they might have brought him...if they hadn't killed him already. At this point leaving without him wasn't an option, not when she had come this far.

 _He isn't dead_.

She would just have to check every room.

* * *

 **That's all for now...  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Here we go. Round 2. Prepare to get your _whump_ on, **Ms. Hawkeye**. :)

 **Chapter 2** :

Natasha went left first. She moved in silence as she stepped down the empty hallway and paused outside the first door that was left open just a crack. She just barely peered inside to take stock of the books on the shelves and the cluttered desk filled with papers and folders. There was one person inside but not a member of the security detail that she had already been dealing with. One of the scientists most likely, especially if the white lab coat was any indication. She pivoted and slunk into the room with quiet footsteps. She said and did nothing until she was standing right behind him, "Hi." She watched him stumble and fall sideways in surprise which only caused her lips to tilt into a sideways smile.

"I—I c-could fix that for you," came his nervous offer, "if you—if you don't k-k-kill me..." _American. Not Hungarian._

She tilted her head to the side slightly and watched him motion to her shoulder. Her eyes flickered down to it for a moment and then she raised an eyebrow up slightly before she looked back at him. "The man with the bow, where is he?" she questioned as she ignored his offer to help her. His eyes were wide and if she weren't in such a hurry then this probably would have amused her to no end. He vehemently shook his head and she smiled as she squatted down, wriggling the bloody knife in his face. "Are you certain?" and he nodded a few times which made her sigh, "that's too bad." He almost looked relieved until she winked at him just before she knocked him over the head with the hilt of the knife. He was out cold in an instant. She stepped back out of the room and headed towards the next door, gently pushing that one open as well.

Nothing.

She moved down the hall further and pushed each door open with the same result. It was nothing if not frustrating and she glanced around the next corner, narrowing her eyes at the man standing outside one of the rooms. She supposed that was as good a place to look as any. You only place guards for something important so either they missed something earlier or Clint was inside that room. She was betting on the latter rather than the former. Glancing up, she noticed the metal rafters that hung low off the ceiling and she smirked. She reached up and with a quick hop, gripped it with her hands and then lifted herself onto them, moving across the ceiling quickly and silently until she was above the man at the door. Hints of laughter from several tones of voices sounded from the room and she dropped down to land on the guard's shoulders, twisting his neck with a quick and resound _snap_.

She shoved the door open without hesitation, going with surprise over stealth, and she watched as four heads turned to look at her. Clint was in a chair, staring at her as though she was the last thing he expected to walk through the door. "Hi boys," she offered up with a wry smile, giving a small finger wave.

One of the men was smirking. " _Four on one_ ," he said in Hungarian.

Natasha tilted her head to the side slightly as though she were debating the odds. "You're right," she said with a near imperceptible nod. "It hardly seems fair. Would you like me to wait while you call for back-up?" she questioned, shrugging at the searing glare she received. At least Clint seemed amused by her words and she motioned to an empty chair before she taunted them further. "I can sit and wait. I'm a very patient person," she informed them.

He rushed her and she kneed him in the gut before slamming his head into the wall.

The other three ran towards her all at once.

The first of the three reached for her and she used it to her advantage. She grabbed his wrists with her hands, holding tightly as she dropped to a slide between his legs that caused him to flip over. One quick step to the side as the next guy dove towards her had him falling right on his face. Without thought she flicked her knife out and moved next to Clint, placing it in his hands for him to free himself. She turned quickly and grabbed the last man's arm as he swung his fist at her. A forceful twist of his wrist had him doubling over and then she was kicking him once, then twice and finally a third time in the midsection. The disgruntled, "Romanoff!" from Clint made her glance to the side in time to see the slick black metal of a baton.

Unfortunately she didn't turn quite fast enough to get out of it's way as it cracked across her skull. Everything blurred in and out for a moment. When things came back into focus it was just in time to see that baton swinging towards her once again. Fortunately she didn't have to worry about her sluggish reaction time to it because Clint's hand grabbed the wrist holding it and plunged her knife into her attacker's neck. Her forehead felt wet and sticky and she gave a disgruntled noise as she clambered back to her feet.

She didn't even remember going down.

"You good?" came her partner's question. She flicked her gaze to Clint who had turned towards her and she could see the brief flicker of concern cross his features. She heaved her second knife with ease and it wedged itself into a man's forehead. Clint's brow furrowed in response as he turned to look at the man who dropped to the ground behind him and then back at her. "Nice throw. But a little warning next time," he requested with a sigh.

He studied Natasha and the shuttering intake of breath that she took. There was blood dripping from the head wound she had just received and it was going in a steady flow from her temple, down in front of her ear. Then there was also the blood pooled at her shoulder from what looked like a bullet wound. "I was aiming for his heart," came her half-hearted reply and he narrowed his eyes at that. With Natasha it was hard to decipher if she was merely teasing or being serious but he was hoping for the former. "We should go, and fast...I dropped a lot of bodies before I got here." She was shoving past him and going out the way she came in before he could even think twice. "This way," she murmured.

They only made it around the first two corners when a door to their left slammed open and a shotgun sounded. Much to her dismay, it was Clint who let out that scream of pain and dropped to the ground. She lifted her gun and shelled out the last bullet into the man's brain, then she instantly turned to Clint to look at the gaping wound. It was at least six inches in length in his outer thigh. " _Der'mo_..." she growled out the Russian expletive. She dropped the pistol, having used its last bullet, and instead she took hold of the shotgun. "Can you get up?" He was shaking his head and groaning, holding his leg tightly. The blood was practically spilling out. "Okay..." and now she needed to figure out what to do about this situation.

"Go..."

"Not going to happen," she informed him curtly as she came to a decision and shoved her hand under the zipper at the chest of his uniform. She was clenching it in her hand from the inside and dragging him slowly down the hall with all the strength she could muster. "I didn't fight my way through all of this just to let you bleed out in their hallway," she told him, breathing heavily with the effort it took to drag him with one hand.

He grunted and watched the trail of blood his leg was leaving. He had to give her credit for the sheer upper body strength that it had to take to drag his weight, let alone to do it single-handedly. "Romanoff..." She was ignoring him. " _Natasha_." He watched her pause briefly to look back at him. They never used first names, as though it were some sort of unspoken agreement to keep some distance between them. It was a line they had never crossed. Until now... "You can't drag me forever... this isn't gonna work." She turned away and he groaned as she continued their trek. They were nearly at the front doors of the facility now and she was making damned good time considering he was dead weight. "You weren't supposed to come back, Romanoff, you were supposed to contact SHIELD so why didn't you?" he questioned.

"I tried," she huffed out as she shoved the doors open with the shotgun and pulled him through them. She was glancing around and he assumed she never actually had a plan for once they were outside. "They never answered. We're on our own." That was more disconcerting than he wanted to admit. She yanked him against the wall outside the doors and leaned him so that he could sit up. Then she shoved the shotgun in his hands as she spoke, "Focus, Barton. I'm going to get us a ride so you better stay alive and shoot anyone that isn't me."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

His voice was shaky, the sweat was beading off of his forehead, and she grimaced internally. Her gaze flicked to the wound on his leg in concern before she took off around the side of the building.

Clint did his best to keep his eyes from looking down at his leg...and to not throw up. She was only gone for a few minutes when tires screeched around the corner from where she had gone as she came to a sudden jolting stop just in front of him. She had stolen a jeep, though from where he couldn't quite fathom. "Is there anything you don't know how to do?" he joked.

"Not that I'm aware of," she informed him as she got out and got both her arms under his armpits. She locked her elbows and pulled him up. He gave his best effort on one leg to help her get him into the backseat.

" _Move!_ " Natasha did and only just in time. She barely shifted to her left and he fired the shotgun, taking out the man who had come up behind her. If it bothered her that she had been snuck up on then she wasn't giving any indication of the sort. "Why'd you do it?" he finally asked her.

"Do what?" she questioned as she adjusted him more comfortably in the backseat before she got back into the driver's seat.

He would have rolled his eyes if he weren't still attempting not to throw up. Instead he just squeezed the shotgun tighter in his hands. "Come back for me," he answered even though _he_ knew that _she_ knew what he meant.

Natasha's thin smile was visible in the rear-view mirror. "Well, I don't imagine leaving without you would look good for me," came her casual response. As usual she was avoiding a real answer but apparently that was the only answer he was going to get, so he let it go for now. He lost track of time as she took several turns and went several miles. It was hard to tell if he had either passed out or spaced out for most of the ride and then suddenly she was tapping his cheek, hovering over him. "Sorry, but when I do this I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to get decked," she admitted with a shrug, "that shot nicked your femoral artery, so... we're going to have to do something about that because it can't wait any longer."

"Fantastic... and exactly how are you planning to fix that?"

His words were slurred, he was shaking and sweating, and this was probably way beyond her scope of expertise. "You're not going to like it," she admitted.

"F-figured..."

She gave him a grim smile before she grabbed a shirt that was in the trunk of the car and balled it up, shoving it in his mouth. "Unsanitary, I know. But bite down," she ordered softly. She grabbed the pistol that she had gotten from the glove box and took the clip out. A second later she let the bullets roll into her hand and she used the knife to pry the edges off the first one. "Deep breath, Barton. This is going to hurt like a bitch," she admitted. She watched the wary look he was giving her before she dumped the powder from the bullet into one hand, and using her other to keep the gaping wound in his leg open, she planted the gunpowder on the nick in the femoral artery. She met his gaze for half a second before she took a match and lit it a blaze. She flinched back as it puffed up in a spark and she grimaced at the sound of Clint moaning and groaning into the shirt.

She was yanking fragments from the shotgun out of the wound once most of the bleeding was taken care of, tossing them onto the floor of the car without a second thought. She grabbed the sewing needle and used another match to sterilize the tip. She waved it out, tossed that out the window and then threaded the fishing line through it. "I'm going to apologize in advance," she told him, but he grabbed her hand and she watched him yank the shirt out with the other. She narrowed her eyes slightly, "Barton-"

"Ever fly a plane?" He saw her confused expression. "Natasha, plane?" Finally she shook her head. "Well, first time for everything. Remember that little airfield we passed earlier?" He grunted when she started threading the fishing line through the wound without warning. "Son of a bitch..." he mumbled, "well...if we can't get a hold of SHIELD then we'll have to get ourselves out."

"You want me to steal one of those Hungarian death traps and fly it?" she questioned, and her look was nothing if not sardonic. It was a reaction that she did remarkably well. He could see the briefest spark of amusement in her green eyes. "I suppose that would be a new one to add to my file," she finally added, "if I knew how to fly a plane."

The comment was enough to take his mind off things for a second. "Did Natasha Romanoff just admit there was something that she couldn't do?" It didn't happen often but occasionally both corners of her lips would curve upward into a _real_ smile. This appeared to be one of those moments. "But no... we aren't stealing a death trap. Sort of..." There was the pain again. "A quinjet. SHIELD hides it in a warehouse there..."

She gave a sideways nod at that. "Alright, well I've never flown _that_ either," she reminded him, "but I suppose we're making Plan G, and in Plan G I learn to fly the quinjet."

Clint gave a pained laugh, he couldn't help it. "There was a Plan C through F?" he asked her.

"Of course, but you die in all of those so we're skipping them."

"Well, I appreciate that." He dared to peek over at her handiwork, surprised to find how even when she was working with a leg that had looked like mincemeat, her suturing skills were nothing if not neat and precise. "Where did you get all this stuff?" he muttered in curiosity. He didn't remember her stopping at any point during the ride.

Natasha was smirking at the question as though the answer were obvious. "Here and there," and her answer elicited one of the most exaggerated eye rolls he could manage. She finished the suturing and held up a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka, sloshing it back and forth for him to see. "Found this in the trunk though." He wasn't sure exactly how to feel about the controversial look on her face as she glanced between him and the wound. "Hate to be wasteful but I suppose it can't be helped. Want a swig before we get started?"

"Started?" She had that morbid gleam in her eyes. He _hated_ seeing that. "Oh, no. No, no, no! Don't you even think abuh-" she shoved the shirt back in his mouth and then poured the vile liquid onto his leg before he could do anything to stop her. To her credit, she was at least grimacing at the decibel his voice reached, even through the shirt clenched between his teeth. Once he was sure that she was done, and that he wasn't going to try and strangle her _,_ he spit the shirt out. _"Bitch..._ " he moaned out. It was hard to stay mad when she gave him a shit-eating grin at hearing his current opinion of her. Hard... but certainly not impossible. "Really... really hate you right now," he mumbled out next.

The amused yet concerned look never quite left her face as she replaced the cap on the bottle and tossed it back into the trunk. "I know, but I prefer that over the inevitable infection if I hadn't done it." He shuttered out a few shaky breaths, blinking through the haze of pain before he felt pressure on his leg. It took a moment before he felt brave enough to even look at what she might be doing next. _Where the hell did she get that?_ She was duct taping a white washcloth to his thigh. Apparently, she could see the question in his eyes without him having to voice it because her voice flowed smoothly to answer it, "I may have seduced a maid in the hotel around the corner and stolen a bunch of toiletries."

He froze, his eyes wide at her explanation. "A ma—a maid? You seduced a maid?"

"Mhmm..." When she finished with the duct tape, she was flopping a pile of clothes on his chest. "You need help getting changed?" He shook his head and watched as she nimbly hopped out from the back seat and into the alley they were currently idling in. "She was a cute little thing. Tan. Dark eyes. Dark curly hair. Nice and soft, too. I'm not sure she was _actually_ that into me, perhaps just curious enough to give it a try—"

He groaned. "Natasha..."

"Yes, Clint?" She almost never said his first name in two years but her voice came out soft and teasing now that she did and he was honestly relieved by it.

"Just _don't_..." He could almost _hear_ her smirking as he wiggled himself out of the backseat, leaning his full weight onto the car and his good leg as he changed into the clothes she had retrieved. "Ready—" he turned in time to get the perfect view of her bare back and he sighed, averting his eyes, "okay...eventually we're going to have to talk about you stripping without warning."

She just barely glanced back at Clint and snickered at the comment. "I'm not shy," she reminded him.

Natasha was one of the most brazen women he had ever met. He huffed out a laugh, "I'm well aware." And he _knew_ she was smiling again.

"I'm done," she informed him, depositing her own catsuit into a heap in the back seat along with his own clothes. "It'll take about two hours to get to that airfield from here if you factor in that those guys from the lab are all over the streets looking for us." She rolled her shoulder and winced at the sharp pain she felt at the motion. She waved off the concerned look he was giving her when he noticed it. "There's another car around the corner we should switch to. I'm pretty sure they've already noticed that this one is missing."

"But your shoulder—"

"Can be dealt with later," came the curt reply he had come to expect, "I've wandered around a lot longer with a lot worse."

He blew out a frustrated sigh. "You know, that's really not as comforting as you seem to think it is." She didn't say a word. There was just the barest hint a somber shrug and nod of her head before she gathered what they were keeping and began to quietly pad down the alley. Two hours way from freedom with streets of hostiles searching for them. He grunted, "This isn't going to be easy."

The weak smile that she flashed back at him was grim at best, foreboding at worst, then she tugged his arm over her shoulder to help him along. It was unsettling that she didn't seem any more sure that they could do this than he was. "Yeah...but I guess they don't send the two of us if they think things will be easy though, hm?"

The question was rhetorical and they both knew it.

Truer words were never spoken.

* * *

 **Don't worry, there's more shit to hit the fan in the upcoming chapter because, well, Budapest can't be _that_ easy, right?**


	3. Chapter 3

I'll give this shout out to **HerzeY** for making me smile like a fool. :)

 **Chapter 3** :

They had traveled in silence for the last hour and a half as Natasha drove the streets and alleyways with a finesse that Clint was pretty sure most people lacked even on streets that they knew properly. If the Hungarians were looking for a vehicle that seemed confused about where they were going then they weren't going to look twice at them. So far it was going miraculously well, and on an even brighter note, he stopped feeling nauseous after the first hour.

"Alright, I have a question."

He glanced over, seeing her eyes peer over at him for half a second. The truth was, he was surprised she was the one break the silence for the first time since they left that alleyway, "Okay."

She looked almost uncertain which was something he wasn't used to from her. Of course, she was doing a lot of unexpected things tonight, the first one being that she had come back and rescued his ass. "You don't have to answer if you don't want," she tacked on, making him even more curious than before. Apparently it was going to be a personal question and he considered that a feat coming from her. Natasha didn't do personal. "Back in Russia...you said that I lost because I had nothing left, that I was hollow and bled dry?"

"I remember."

Her lips were pursed as she clearly debated the repercussions of what she was about to ask. "So why aren't you like me?" came her wary question. It wasn't what he expected. "Because I've worked with you for two years now but I don't feel any different, I feel exactly the same..." He frowned at the explanation and admittance, not sure exactly how to answer her, or even if his answer would be what she wanted to hear. "Just be honest with me. What exactly are you fighting for?"

"I have people waiting for me." It wasn't the answer she was expecting, and in truth she didn't really know what she had been expecting. She wasn't sure why, but she had just assumed that people in this business didn't have people to care about them, that they were all as alone as she was. She supposed she might have known otherwise if she had actually cared to learn about other agents in SHIELD She tilted her head to the side slightly, rolling his answer around in her head. "Tell you what, if we get out of this alive then I'll show you."

She flicked her gaze back to him, narrowing her eyes slightly at the offer, "Why would you do that?"

The sheer confusion in her tone was almost depressing but he had to remember that she spent most of her life alone. The only people she was ever around were either marks or the people who made her what she was. There was only one time she ever commented about Red Room and that was to tell him something she had been told as a child. A horrifying statement that had been ingrained in was playing in his head even now.

' _Your appearance is one of true beauty, Natalia. It's a weapon. A true weapon that nobody will see coming. It can be more deadly than a knife or a gun. You just have to learn how to wield it._ '

"Because before today I respected you without a doubt but that was it..." he informed her honestly, "but you ignored SHIELD protocol by coming back and saving my ass. You risked your own life..."

She listened but frankly she wasn't really sure what to make of the statement. "We risk our lives each time we go on a mission," she reminded him.

He sighed and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Not like that." He glanced over at her again but she wasn't looking at him and the mask of indifference was back. "I owe you, Natasha." At that she openly flinched. She knew he saw it and it happened before she could stop it. He was staring at her, clearly confused by the reaction but she didn't say anything. She couldn't find the words to say anything. "Are you okay?"

It was small but he could see the sigh escape her parted lips before she frowned. "You don't owe me anything," she told him. Again, not what he had been expecting. "We don't talk about it, we never do...but if anybody else had shown up in that alley that night and gotten the better of me then I would be dead." She pursed her lips again and slanted her head slightly to the side as she considered her next words carefully. "So the truth is this, Clint; you'll never owe me anything because I owe you my life."

"I'm failing to see the difference here," he admitted, "and we both know that nobody else was going to get the better of you, hell...I barely got the the better of you."

Another sigh, this one more heavy than the last. "The difference is that I wasn't really living before. I wasn't even really sure I was living after you decided not to kill me," she admitted and she could see the look of sympathy on his face. Truthfully, she was just glad it wasn't pity. "I still don't know. I feel..."

"Feel what?" It was the most honest conversation they had ever had. Or maybe the only honest conversation they had ever had.

"Empty."

He opened his mouth, about to speak, but the sound of gunfire interrupted any chance of continuing the conversation. Natasha's window shattered and he watched her close her eyes until the glass stopped spraying her. He considered it a half-baked miracle that they didn't crash into anything or anyone but he supposed that was just wishful thinking. More bullets sprayed the car and he heard the front tire blow out, saw the wheel jerk in her hands, and he reached over to try and help her steady it. It was no use, bullets kept spraying and soon the rear tire on the exact same side blew out and the car flipped before there was time to do anything about it. It didn't just flip once though, he counted at least three times before everything went black.

* * *

"Shit..." Clint grumbled out, forcing his eyes open. He was sitting in a chair and tied up _again_. He managed to look around, his gaze finally landing on Natasha to his left. The redhead wasn't moving and her eyes weren't open. The left side of her face had multiple tiny cuts that she had obviously gotten from her car window earlier, not to mention the bruise and broken skin from the baton shot earlier. "Romanoff..." She never budged, never opened an eye, hell...not even a peep came from her.

She was in a chair, her situation equally as depressing as his own and to anyone else, she appeared to be out cold. Not to Clint. He could just barely see her fingertips moving over the ropes at her back, trying to free herself with the most minuscule blade he had ever seen. At some point she had woken up before him and he had to assume she was pretending not to be awake for a reason, then he watched as several men walked into the room and he followed them with his eyes. This was typically interrogation time but the Hungarians seemed to have a different idea. The four men who walked inside parted in half and another man stepped forward, dumping a bucket of water over Natasha's head.

There was no jerking movement from her and instead, very slowly, she angled her head up and opened both eyes fully, staring at the man before her with disinterest. "There _are_ nicer ways to wake a girl up," she politely informed him. She studied him with a tilt of her head. "You know who I am."

It wasn't a question and that bothered Clint in a way he couldn't quite place.

"That is correct," came his answer. He waved someone over with his index and middle fingers.

Clint watched Natasha look over at him. "I forgot to mention how much the Hungarians hate me," she stated casually. She had the smallest of smiles gracing her lips and he would have laughed under other circumstances. With their jobs, there weren't too many people who _didn't_ hate them.

Another man walked in wearing a pair of ridiculous green rubber gloves and two metal prongs in his hands. Before either he or Natasha could react both prongs touched the bare skin on her arms and he could _smell_ burning flesh when her body convulsed from the electricity that came from the tiny metal rods.

"What the hell?!" he growled out, "you didn't even ask anything! You don't just electrocute somebody and not _ask_ anything!"

The prongs lifted off her skin and she rolled her shoulders. He was reacting as if people like this actually followed any sort of moral code. She let out a heavy sigh forcing everyone, including Clint, to look at her in disbelief. "They don't have any questions," she stated. She glanced between the man who ordered the assault and the one who actually performed it. "Just so you know," she stated, nodding to the man holding the prongs, "in a few minutes I'm going to kill you with those and then..." she looked over at the man in charge, "then I'm going to kill you."

He was laughing and Clint could only think that the man didn't know her _nearly_ as well as he must have thought if he wasn't taking her seriously. Without looking he knew she was still working that blade on the ropes. He really wished he knew where she kept all these things hidden. Until he met Natasha he had never seen anyone carry such a large arsenal on their person. Even so, he averted his eyes, grimacing when the prongs met her arms again. He counted three more times before she actually reacted vocally and even then it was only something akin to groaning. "Stop!" They didn't, but he had to at least _try_ to get them to stop. Another bucket of water. Another few rounds of electricity coursing through her. _And screaming..._ He never wanted to hear that again, especially not from Natasha.

"Music to my ears," the man in charge huffed out with a laugh, "I was not sure it was actually possible." Clint watched out of the corner of his eye as she continued with the blade. It was obviously taking her longer than she had initially planned but she was nearly through the ropes. "Such beauty, wasted. It truly is a shame that I have to kill you."

Her head tilted ever-so-slightly to the side and Clint hung his head to hide the smile, knowing _exactly_ what she was about to say. "You think I'm beautiful?" It was her thing and for some reason, be it the strange vulnerability she could force into her voice whenever she said it or something else, they _always_ fell for that line. It was also her way of telling him she was about to do something incredibly dangerous, which he appreciated. He jumped up in his chair, slamming it back down onto the floor and breaking the legs off it. Then he ran it backwards into two of the guards, slamming them so hard into the wall that the chair broke into pieces and the two men crumpled to the ground.

Natasha's newly freed hands whipped around, grabbing the wrists of the man with the prongs and forcing them to shove the prongs into his own neck. Even when she released him the convulsions never stopped and she stood fluidly, slashing that same blade in her hand across the throat of the man in charge.

He rolled his legs through his arms, getting them in front of him and grabbing a broken piece of the leg from the remnants of his chair, slamming it across the third man's head several times. The fourth guy came at him from behind and Clint slammed his head back into his attacker's, hearing the satisfying _crunch_ come from his nose. He turned, slamming the wooden leg over the guy's head several times until he fell too. He leaned down, snatching the knife from his own boot and slicing the ropes off his own hands. Looking over towards Natasha he could see her breathing heavily and shaking. With the adrenaline gone his leg was killing him, but even so, he made his way to her. He grabbed her arm just as her legs nearly gave out beneath her. She was shivering and he tugged her arm across his shoulders, leaning down and cutting her ankles from the chair's legs. "C'mon..." he ordered. He looked next to the door and smirked, "Look. They brought my bow." He tugged it onto his back and watched Natasha grip the quiver in her free hand.

"R-really... h-hate this c-country..." Her teeth were chattering and he chuckled as he poked his head out the door. Looking right to left, he didn't see anything. They had been in the one single room in the entire building and the rest of the place was empty aside from the door at the other end and a rather large garage door. He ignored the throbbing of his leg, a leg he most certainly shouldn't be putting weight on, and tugged her through to the other side. "Fury's g-gonna be p-pissed..." and that actually made him laugh.

"Probably," he admitted. _Definitely..._ He pushed the door open and raised both eyebrows up in surprise, "I'll be damned, these shitheads brought us _right_ to the airfield." She wasn't saying anything and he looked over, feeling her short and quick breaths against his side. She was still shaky, still shivering, and her lips were still trembling. Electric shocks could do that if you were hit with enough of them. She had put on a hell of act, not showing any of the effects while she was in that room though. "Side note, I think this country hates you more," he smiled at the breathy laugh she released at his words, "so, I take it you're not a fan of electric shock?"

Her eyes rolled dramatically in response as she let him lead her through the airfield. At least he appeared to know where he was going. "Not p-particularly..."

"Where do you hide all the knives?" and he heard her start shaking harder, causing him to glance over in concern, but it had nothing to do with the electric shocks she had received. She was shaking from silent laughter. "It's not funny, I've never seen anything like it. Just when I think there can't _possibly_ be another, there you are, whipping it out." And the look she gave him was nothing if not sordid and mocking. "Do _not_ make the joke," he warned. He smirked when she made a motion as if to zipper her lips, quiver in hand. "We're almost there, keep going." Almost wasn't enough. A shot rang out and he hit the ground behind a cement half-wall, hearing the gasp from Natasha as he landed on top of her.

"So much for... almost there..." she huffed out. He shifted off of her and he watched as she leaned her back against their only barrier from the barrage of bullets now pelting it. But she was staring at his waist and he followed her gaze. He had a hole in his shirt with crimson seeping out of it. "Just a graze," came her relieved voice as she prodded it with her index finger. At least her teeth weren't chattering anymore. "Like you said...almost there. Get your bow ready, we got one jeep, five men..." he watched as she dared to peek out around the side, "aim for the driver on my mark..." She held the quiver out and he took it. He watched as she raised three fingers and he notched the arrow. Two fingers and he pulled it back on the drawstring. One finger and he turned his body. When her hand became a fist he heaved the bow over the top of the barrier and let the arrow fly. "Again." He let another arrow loose within two seconds. The first shattered the window. The second landed right in the driver's forehead.

The jeep took a sudden turn with its navigator gone and suddenly it tilted and flipped. The force was enough that he felt Natasha's arm grasp his and she was forcing him to his feet and then to run as the jeep flipped its way towards them. The explosion when the jeep flipped over the cement barricade they had been behind was enough to knock them both to the ground. "You good?" he huffed out, watching as she nodded. They were both slowly getting back to their feet when another _crackle_ and _boom_ sounded from the jeep. He turned his head to look back.

"Move!"

He heard her voice, felt those small hands yanking him aside, and then he saw the metal rod that propelled towards them from the explosion. Instead of him, it slammed into Natasha's head with a force the dropped her to the ground, all because she had made sure to get him out of the way. He knelt down immediately, getting her arm across his shoulder and trying to drag her back up to her feet. "C'mon, Nat..." he grumbled, "c'mon, get up! Get up!" Getting her on her feet was like holding up dead weight, with his ability to pull her along being drastically reduced by his leg. _The leg Natasha fixed..._ He should have died. He should have bled out from a wound that bad and yet she had done everything possible to make sure that didn't happen. He half dragged and half carried her towards the hangar, barely managing to keep himself on his feet at the same time. Their only escape awaited in that hangar and he could hear her mumbling.

He finally heard the quiet mumbles, finally made out her words, "You can go h-home..." He dared to actually take a look at her face and it horrified him. Her eyes were glazed like she was barely even there and the entire right side of her face was practically _painted_ crimson with the blood pouring from the laceration that the metal rod left behind. "S'okay..."

It took him a moment to realize she was trying to tell him to leave her. " _We_ can go home," he corrected her.

"Mmm-mmm..." and she was shaking her head just slightly. "No home..." came her reply and he frowned at that. She had a sort of grim smile gracing her face that was just so damned depressing as she spoke again, "P-people like me? We don't get h-homes..."

Clint brushed some of the bloody strands of hair out of her face and back behind her ear. "Sure you do. My home is your home," he assured her. "You have a home with me, _trust me_ , you have one. But only if you help me out here," he told her, "so just walk, just move your feet, Natasha. We're almost there, remember?"

"T-trust you..." It rolled off her tongue with more ease than she thought it would. "I do..." she groaned out the admittance, trying to get her feet to cooperate and move with her partner, "okay..."

For a moment he didn't understand _why_ she said okay, then he realized that Natasha was trying to get her feet to move, to try and help him to help her move. "Okay..." he mirrored the word, pulling her along as her feet slowly started taking some of her weight and moving of their own accord. It still took more effort than it should have and the noise that came from her, practically a whimper, almost made him stop. Almost, but her eyes seemed at least a little more alert the more she moved so he didn't dare stop as he urged her on, "Good, Nat, you're doing good."

"This n-never leaves Budapest..." she warned jokingly, though it sounded pathetic in her slightly slurred voice. He gave a halfhearted smile at her attempt at levity, giving her hand a small squeeze. Gently but swiftly he pulled her through the door and into the hangar, seeing the relieved look when she saw the quinjet inside. "T-thanks...for not leaving m-me..."

He managed to prop her against the side of the jet and to his relief, she stayed on her feet, though she looked like she just might pass out. "Hey... I would _never_ leave you like that," he promised her, slamming his hand on the button to open the bay door to the quinjet, "after all this, I trust you too, Nat." The look that crossed her face was one he couldn't quite make out. Twice he called her Nat and twice she let him do it. He wasn't just using her first name, he had shortened it into a nickname and she had accepted it without a word.

More screeching tires and Natasha groaned, turning her head and watching three jeeps that were careening towards their hangar. " _Bozhe moi..._ They d-don't give up," she muttered out. He was good with a bow, but not _that_ good. He couldn't deal with three jeeps with a bow and arrow. She grabbed hold of the edge of the bay door once it was close enough in lowering and starting pulling herself up with both arms. "Get me o-over the top..." The endeavor was only successful when Clint put his hands under her feet and boosted her, even if he seemed uncertain about whether it was a good or bad idea.

She rolled over the top of it, landing on her back on the inside of the quinjet and it took a second to breathe after she knocked the wind out of herself. There was no time to really recover and she rolled over, thankful that adrenaline was flowing once more to bring her back to her senses some. She pulled herself up using a bar on the wall and threw open one of the containers in the back, smirking slightly as she yanked out what she was looking for and putting the large gun between her legs. She grabbed the rocket and slammed it into the rocket launcher, then turned just in time for the bay door to fully open. She one-armed the launcher back up and aimed it, half leaning against the wall to stay on her feet. "Get _in_!" she yelled out. She watched Clint's wide eyes as he dove inside and she fired it over top of him, directly into the path of the jeeps. It was enough to send _all_ three of them sailing through the air. "Plan H. _You_ fly the jet."

Clint cleared his throat, hobbling to his feet and using the wall to get himself to the cockpit faster. "I better not die in Plan H!" he called back to her as he started flipping the switches, firing the quinjet up.

"No deaths again until Plan J!" she called back. Adrenaline seemed to have cured her slur and made her voice stronger. She heard him snicker even through the whirring of the engines. She closed the bay door, patting the launcher with mock affection. "I'm calling you Bertha," she told the launcher.

He glanced back at her. "Seriously?"

She waited, keeping watch until the bay door closed all the way. "What, you don't name your guns?"

"No..."

"Your bow?" And he shook his head. "Huh..." she shrugged at that and then placed the rocket launcher back in the crate. "Well, that was Bertha. My pistols are Carla and Frankie."

He watched until Natasha pulled herself along the wall and took the seat next to him, catching her breath and closing her eyes as she leaned her head back on the seat. "What do you name all your knives?" he dared to ask.

Those fierce green eyes opened and she gave him the most incredulous look, "I don't name my knives, I'm not a psychopath."

Clint sighed, shaking his head as he flew the quinjet out of the hangar and activated its stealth mode. "Could have fooled me, right now you look like freakin' Carrie at the prom."

"I'm going to try my best not to be offended by that." Natasha reached her hand under her shirt to her chest, ignoring the look from him that said she was insane. A second later she pulled out the computer chip that looked a little blackened from her earlier electrocution and slightly water-logged. "Well... guess Budapest wasn't a total bust," she murmured.

He couldn't _believe_ she still had that damn thing. "Son of a bitch... I could kiss you."

Natasha wish chuckling and he rolled his eyes. "So...protocol. I assume we're following it now." She watched him nod at that and closed her eyes again, the throbbing in her head becoming almost unbearable, "then no kissing." He laughed at her joke and then she gave the real comment, "So we hide until SHIELD contacts us." He didn't answer but she assumed he was nodding once more. "Where do we go?"

"Home."

She opened one eye to look at him and he could see the uncertainty. Apparently she thought that he had just been lying to her before to get her moving. He intended to prove otherwise to her.

* * *

 **There we go. Finally escaping Budapest! I think I whumped them enough. Eventually you just gotta let 'em go!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4** :

Clint had the quinjet on autopilot and he had kept busy for the first hour of the flight by stitching up Natasha's many wounds. Between the bullet wound in her shoulder and the gash on her forehead it was a little hard to decide if she was just _really_ good at hiding her reaction to pain, or if the massive concussion she had was just dulling her senses, but either way she hadn't spoken a word during it or after he was finished. The next hour was spent with her stitching the graze from another bullet wound on his side and then wrapping his ribs which were bruised, likely from when their jeep crashed. All things considered, they spent a lot of time doing in-field and post-mission first aid on each other since they had been partnered, but even so this was the first mission where either of them actually laid everything on the line to protect the other. It was also the first time either of them actually needed to.

Budapest had caused a shift in gears for them both and Natasha wasn't entirely sure what to do about it. A conflicted combination of various emotions crossed her mind in the third hour. She was someone who trusted no one and someone that no one trusted. It was the way she was raised and suddenly both of those things had changed. She was laying down in the back of the quinjet, eyes open and staring at the ceiling as she debated all of it; debated the intelligence of forming such a relationship. She knew Clint was concerned not just with her injuries but her silence for the last few hours, she could see it in the way he would look over at her from where he was sitting just a few feet away. He kept quiet and she appreciated the fact he was giving her space to figure out her own thoughts, however she figured it was time to actually air the topic aloud.

The start of it came out in a way even she hadn't actually expected though, "Red Room taught me that forming real bonds with other people was a weakness that couldn't be afforded." Her words seemed to catch him off guard and she saw his eyes fall on her with some surprise. She kept her gaze on the ceiling, avoiding his eyes, "Truth is, I don't really know how to be anything other than what I am."

"And what are you?" came the question. She hesitated and it was a mistake because then he was turning his attention fully towards her. Now she didn't dare look at him, afraid of what she might see. "And I don't want you to answer based on what you think I want to hear, or on what others told you that you are. I want you to tell me what you think you are. _You_."

Natasha's eyes narrowed slightly as she mulled it over in her head. "I'm not really sure anymore," she told him honestly. "I don't know what I am, or who I am, or who I'm supposed to be," she admitted as she heaved out a sigh, rubbing the tired from her eyes without any real success, so she simply left them closed. "I don't know how to be this..." she paused in further thought, "this—this person that somebody trusts, or the person that trusts someone..." She opened one eye and peaked over at him but he was merely listening with a mask of indifference that matched her own. "And we're not sleeping together, so I guess what I am is confused," she tacked on next. She saw the mask slip, heard him snort and then suddenly he was laughing. Not just a little bit either; Clint Barton was almost near hysterics, clutching his ribs in a full-on bout of laughter. "This is funny to you?" she questioned in frustration.

She was mortified by his reaction and he could see it. He _actually_ had to wipe tears from his eyes. "Lemme-" he coughed, clearing his throat and trying to snuff the laughter, "let me get this straight..." And he had to take another breath, "You don't understand this because we're not sleeping together?" And the previous look changed to one of profound confusion and he frowned in an instant. "You really don't," he mumbled, scratching his head. He was at a loss with this. Red Room and the KGB had really done a number on her because unless it was a mission, the woman across from him had absolutely no idea how to have a _real_ social interaction with a person. It was because she was all fake names, fake faces, fake backgrounds. Natasha didn't know how to just be _herself_ because she had no idea who her real self was behind all of the lies. They bonded over sparring sessions and tactics and missions, but unlike him, she had no life outside of SHIELD. "You've never done anything outside of whatever or whoever you were working for, have you?" he dared to ask, "no dates?" She just shrugged, which wasn't really an answer but he was going to assume she was agreeing. "What do you do for fun?"

Her eyebrows quirked up in response to the question and she tilted her head to the side. "I train," as if that was the most obvious answer in the world.

"You—" he guffawed, "Natasha, I mean something that _isn't_ work-related."

"Everything is work-related," she reminded him.

"Knitting," he offered up. Her shrug indicated she had used it at least once. "Crocheting," another shrug and he wanted to call her out for lying. "Painting?" Another shrug and he groaned. "An instrument?" More shrugging. "You're killing me here..." he added with a sigh. "Shuffleboard!"

"Seriously?"

"Ha! Knew there was something."

She narrowed her eyes slightly at that. "Not _even_ for a mission could you convince me to play shuffleboard, you idiot." She saw him laugh at that and her own lips curled upwards at the thought. "God, could you imagine me shuffleboarding?"

The image of it came across his mind and he laughed even harder. "Not without a good laugh," he admitted, "and I really don't think 'shuffleboarding' is a word." At least she was grinning now. "Look, the truth is, there is pretty much _nothing_ you don't know about or know how to do—"

"Except _shuffleboarding_. And flying a plane."

He saw her smirking. "Right, besides those." He shook his head in amusement. "Isn't there anything you just _want_? Anything you want to do?" he asked her.

Natasha's amusement faded into a blank slate and she looked back up at the ceiling. "There used to be," she answered. She saw the concern reform on his features from the corner of her eye, heard the question he wasn't actually voicing. "The same things all little girls want, I suppose, but they take those things from you, if they can actually take them. And if they can't just _take_ it then they morph it into something that—that appalls you...in ways that you can't even fathom," then she paused again, blinking through things that had long ago stopped causing her grief. "I used to dance." He was listening intently, curiously, and sadly. "Ballet," she emphasized. "For a while, I loved it. Until it became a weapon. It wasn't meant for fun, I learned that. It was used at first to be more... graceful, more agile, and more precise. It's amazing the sheer strength it takes to actually dance like that, and it's ironic really because most of the dances show women to others as being passive and fragile." She closed her eyes again, remembering, "But I learned that they don't teach you things like that for no reason. They drill it into you, again and again and again..." She took a deep breath and then turned her head back to Clint as she gave him a sad smile. "It's not so much fun when your feet are always bleeding, but I never really minded that, not really. But it became even less so when you realized you're actually _really_ great at it, and they were going to turn something so _beautiful_ into something so...vile."

Natasha sat up now, turning to look at Clint. He hadn't said a word but she supposed he didn't actually need to. He didn't have a look of pity. It was a look of sympathy, empathy and sorrow. "I fell in love on that mission." That seemed to have caught his interest more than any of the rest of it. "Or rather... with the mission. I was suppose to take him in and instead I let him take me away." She flicked her gaze down to the floor. It was like once she started talking she just couldn't shut up. It just kept coming out, like verbal diarrhea, finally able to tell somebody her secrets. "I don't know why I thought it could end any differently than it did. I guess I didn't think it could really, but—but I was happy, at least for a little while..." She didn't remember Clint moving but he was sitting next to her now, his hand over top of hers. She stared down at their hands with a blank face. "They let me remember that so that I could remember the pain of losing it when they took it away from me. So that I would never make that mistake again."

"Natasha—"

"I'm not finished," she cut him off, watching the surprise cross his features one more time, "unless you want me to be?" She smiled a little when he shook his head immediately and motioned for her to continue. "I'm telling you what I never tell anyone, what _little_ remnants of the past that I actually remember through the memories that they have –have picked apart...or erased." She frowned now, her brow wrinkling in frustration. "I told you I felt empty but that's not entirely true. I have demons inside of me and they're ripping me apart. The more I remember, if any of what I remember is actually _real_ , the more I wish it would all go away again." She pulled her hand out from under his, clenching and unclenching it in front of her face. "Why would you want someone like me in your life? In your home? Why would you invite me to be a part of it?" she dared to ask.

Clint waited until she finally stopped staring at her hand and actually looked at him before he actually answered her, "The past is exactly that, and that's where it'll stay."

She huffed out a sigh. "Not mine. Never mine," she told him quietly. She closed her eyes again, her head _throbbing_ , and not just from the head injury. "There's a reason that the Hungarian's didn't kill us. A reason they knew who I was. Deep down, you _know_ I'm right." She saw him reluctantly nod as he finally agreed with the statement. "Red Room? They don't want me dead, Clint. They want me _back_. And other countries _don't_ want them to get me back. Actually, let me rephrase that, Red Room wants who I used to be back." She pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to say what was really bothering her. "There aren't a whole lot of things that scare me, and to be honest, only one thing ever has. _Them_. Have you ever—ever had somebody dig around in your head? Change things? Make you see things that never happened? Or forget things that _did_ happen?"

"No..." he answered honestly. Surprisingly, other than looking like she had a killer headache, he couldn't make heads or tails of what she was thinking. The only person who matched her skill at hiding emotion, and even exceeded it, was Nick Fury. At least the only person he had ever met.

"Then you're lucky," she informed him blandly. "It's terrifying not being able to tell the difference between reality and the lies. After a while, it all just blends together. The past is supposed to be steady and unchanging, but not mine. Even now, after three years with no mind games, things are _still_ changing. And...I'm loathed to admit it, but I am more susceptible to that sort of control than anyone because they have done it my entire life." Natasha turned, locking her gaze with his blue eyes. "If they get me—"

"They won't."

" _If_ they get me," she continued with a stronger voice, "they can and will turn me against SHIELD, and against you. You're trusting me so I'm being honest with you." She could see him doing his best to bite his tongue. "I'm a machine and they can reprogram me," she explained.

Clint rubbed his eyes now, his own headache forming. "What do you want to do about it?" he asked her.

"I don't know, not yet, but I'll figure it out. I need to—I need to because I've been on my own my entire life. Until you..." she paused, squeezing her eyes shut. "And now—now everything is different and I would die for—for whatever _this_ is..." she motioned between them, "because I don't think I can go back to what I was before."

They were both quiet after that, neither of them entirely sure where to go from there. He wasn't used to hearing so much come from her let alone hearing so much in thirty minutes and Natasha clearly never told anyone anything until that moment. Once she had started talking it had all just come pouring out, proving that she had never had anyone to talk to about all that she had gone through before him. There was a good five minutes of nothing before he said the first thing he could think of to clear the awkward silence, "I used to be in the circus." It worked. Her entire demeanor changed and her lips were twitching, then real laughter bubbled out from her chest and through her mouth. Admittedly, never once in two years had he heard the woman beside him laugh as hard as she was right now and it was so contagious that he actually found himself chuckling.

Natasha finally covered her mouth with her hand, effectively snuffing the next fit of laughter as she tried to catch her breath. "Okay... okay," she managed to get out breathlessly. "But really? The circus?" she questioned. Clint could actually see a certain light in her eyes, a glimmer of almost childish amusement that he had never seen before and he was glad that he had put it there. "Like— _Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum_ ," and before she could actually finish her rendition of a circus theme she was laughing all over again.

"Yeah, yeah," he told her, snickering. He didn't have it in him to ruin the moment by telling her the truth of it all, "Exactly like that."

And Natasha was grinning. "Bearded lady?" she asked.

He stood up. "Very hairy. Very nice. And very real," he assured her with a chuckle. Still, he could see that even through her amusement at the very idea of the circus that she knew there was an actual story behind it. "I'll tell you all about it another time," he assured her. And he would. Preferably when she wasn't smiling about circus songs and bearded ladies. "Lay down, go to sleep," he ordered her, heading back towards the cockpit, "we still have a while to go and I'll make sure to wake you up once an hour so you don't join the land of vegetables."

"Gee, how sweet of you," she scoffed with a roll of her eyes. She didn't fight Clint on the suggestion though. To be honest with herself, she was just too damned tired. Natasha laid down on her side, facing the wall as she closed her eyes, but she sleep didn't come too quickly and instead there were just more questions. "Clint?"

"Yeah?" came his response from up front.

She kept quiet for a moment before she asked what she wanted to know, "What's it like?"

"What?"

"Home..."

He froze at that, turning to look at her back to him from the cockpit. He should have thought of that. She had never known 'home'. She had never had one. She had been far too young when she was taken to Red Room. An orphan. "A little chaotic," he admitted, "messy." She made no comment about it. "Smells like cow shit," and he heard a small laugh, "I'm not kidding, it really does!"

"Are you telling me there's a cow?"

"I'm telling you there are _two_ cows." Silence. "And some horses." He had her attention now and he watched as she turned over, leaning up on her elbow as she looked at him. "And maybe some chickens," he admitted

"Old McBarton had a farm?"

He smirked as she laid her head back down and closed her eyes before he sung out the retort, "E-I-E-I-O."

 _The floors were concrete, the walls plain and gray, and the small room was barren of anything besides a bed and a dresser with all of the same clothes. The walls were screaming. The walls always screamed. Of course, it wasn't actually the walls, it was all the other girls. Their screams always echoed off the walls. There was nowhere else for the screams to go._

 _The screamers never lasted long._

 _The criers didn't either._

"Natasha."

 _'You sit there, you stay quiet and you take whatever they dish out. You don't scream, you don't cry, you don't react at all.' That's what she was told. That's what she would tell others. 'You become what they tell you. You do what they tell you. If they say jump, you jump. You don't ask how high. You don't ask questions at all.' A puppet. That's what she was. Emotionless. Empty. Doing nothing until someone pulled the strings._

"We're here."

 _The chair is there. It's always there. Waiting. Blood always sits on the arms of it. Even on the back of it. Sometimes it's dried. Sometimes it's fresh._

 _She really hates when it's fresh._

"C'mon, Nat, walk with me."

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know..."

 _The voices don't belong. The voices don't care. They aren't supposed to care. They had never cared before. There are needles on the arm of the chair and they dig into her wrists, but she doesn't flinch. She never flinches. She just wants to be perfect. If she's perfect then she'll never have to see the chair again._

 _She really doesn't want to see the chair again._

"Her eyes are open but she's not reacting. I don't think she's really even here, Clint."

"I've never seen her like this before..."

"Is this her? The woman that you—y'know?"

"Yeah..."

 _The chair never goes away. The pain is so much worse. It was never meant to feel like this. The needles in her wrist. The needles in her back. The ones that go through her eyes, pulling memories and changing reality._

 _All she really wants to do is scream._

"Whoa... whoa..." came the soothing voice. It was a tone of voice that nobody had ever used around her before and she stared at the woman whose wrists she was clutching so tightly in her hands. Wavy brown hair, chocolate eyes that were staring into her own with concern. "You're alright, sweetie..." _Sweetie?_ She didn't remember letting go of the woman's hands but she must have. Suddenly they were on either side of Natasha's face and those warm brown eyes were growing even more concerned. "I'm Laura." She acted as though that introduction would mean something. "Laura Barton."

 _Barton?_

"Barton..." and her voice felt foreign even to her own ears. Natasha tore her eyes off the woman who was seated on the edge of the bed next to her and she finally looked around. Then a distinct _moo_ in the background sounded throughout the room. _E-I-E-I-O._ "Where is Barton?" She didn't wait for an answer, shifting her gaze back to the woman and pulling her hands from her face. "And who are you?"

She watched her flinch and she ignored it, keeping the tight grip on her wrists. "Laura—I just told you that."

 _Did she?_

"Natasha," at his voice she averted her eyes over to the doorway to where Clint was quickly limping his way in. "She's okay, Laura's okay," he assured her, placing his hands over Natasha's, "you can let her go." She did so in an instant. She watched as Clint nodded his head and the brunette made herself scarce in response to it. Given that she had probably just bruised the poor woman's wrists, she really wished Laura hadn't just given her such a worried look before leaving the room. It made her feel lousy. "She's my wife," he answered the unasked question. The curiosity must have been apparent on her face. "Probably should have told you that before we actually got here, right?" he joked halfheartedly.

The response to that was on the tip of her tongue: _Yes_! Her mouth opened but she thought better of it before she finally just shrugged. She supposed she didn't really blame him for not saying anything about the wife. "You thought I wouldn't agree to come here," she stated for him. But something on his face said that wasn't _all_ he hadn't mentioned on the trip here. Then the wailing noise of a crying baby echoed.

 _The walls are screaming..._

"Natasha?" Clint could see it. She looked almost horrified. It was horror and fear mixed together. "Nat—It's just a baby," he assured her, reaching his hand to her shoulder. She flinched away from the touch, slamming her back hard against the headboard. He stood up when she covered her ears with her hands, because wherever she just went, it wasn't here, murmuring about walls screaming. He listened to Laura's footsteps pause back in the doorway and he tried again to reassure Natasha, "It's just a baby, Nat..."

It seemed to get through to her because she uncovered her ears and listened more carefully. "A baby?" she mumbled.

"Yeah..."

The look on her face was one of disbelief. "Are you out of your mind?" he winced at that. Her voice didn't just sound upset, it sounded enraged. "A wife? A baby?" she questioned, standing up and pacing, fingers running through her hair in a show of exasperation. "Why would you bring me here?" Yet another new side of his partner he had never seen before. "Look at me! Do I _look_ like someone that should be around—around all of this?" she growled out. For a second he was afraid she might actually rip her hair out. "Did something about what I said on the ride here just fly over your damned head, Barton?" He took a deep breath but he didn't have time to reply because she was still ranting. "I hurt her in less than two minutes. You _never_ should have brought me here."

"Nat—"

"Don't _Nat_ me!" she ordered him. "You don't get to do that, you don't get to throw out some cheesy little nickname and think that this—" she motioned all around her, "that _all of this_ , is okay! It's not, I can't be here—"

"Dad?"

The child's voice froze her in place and Clint watched as Natasha turned and looked at the four-year-old in the doorway. The look on her face changed and softened almost immediately at the sight of his son and Clint had to admit surprise at the sudden change, then he watched as she looked at him again for an answer. "My son," he explained, "Cooper." He leaned over to whisper in her ear, "Aunt Natasha was pretty much the best I could come up with here off the top of my head."

Shell-shocked didn't even begin to cover the look on her face this time as she responded, "You lie for a living and you couldn't think of anything else?"

"Coop, buddy, why don't you show Aunt Nat around?" _If looks could kill..._

He gave Natasha a shove towards his son but the four-year-old had on one of those faces that said he knew something was up. Natasha was pretty sure he was giving her the stink-eye.

"Are you gonna yell at me too, Auntie Nat?" the little boy questioned.

She opened her mouth and then closed it less than a second later. A child had just completely flabbergasted her. "No, no Cooper, of course not," she finally relented. When he held out his hand to her she reluctantly took it and allowed the kid to lead her out of the room, "But when we're done I'll probably yell at your father some more."

"Thas' s'okay," he told her, "Mom does that _all_ the time." Then he motioned her down to his level and he leaned in to tell his secret, "Thas' why I don't leave the toilet seat up no more."

That actually made the corners of her lips curl up into the smallest of smiles.

* * *

 **Still more to come!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5** :

Clint couldn't decide what to do about his partner. A week had past and though Natasha remained stoic with the uncomfortable change in her environment, he could also see that she was walking on eggshells around his family. He didn't have much luck getting her to open up, and neither did Laura, though his son tended to get the redhead's attention a few times. He stood against the side of the doorway with his arms folded as he kept most of the weight on his good-leg. He watched her sit on the couch next to Cooper as she watched Star Wars with an unreadable expression, showing no interest in the movie nor the child beside her. His one-year-old little girl was currently using the spy's legs to pull herself onto the couch too, but if it bothered Natasha then he couldn't tell. He also couldn't be sure what was said when his son leaned over to tell her something and her only response was to blink a few times before giving him the tiniest upward curl of her lips.

"Clint..." he heard his wife say softly. He turned his head to look at her next to him and she asked her question, "I get what you're trying to do here, I really do, but did it ever occur to you that she might not be okay with this?"

Of course it had, only the realization came far too late to do anything about it. "Yes," and he chuckled a little under his breath as he answered Laura. "Just—just not until she was already here," he admitted as he scratched his head. He was dragged from the doorway and into the next room only a moment after his answer and he didn't bother to tell Laura that if Natasha wanted to then she would find a way to hear what they were saying.

"She's not sleeping..." she pointed out quietly, but the worry was evident in her voice.

"Natasha hardly ever does," Clint informed her as he sighed and limped his way into the chair nearby. "You remember how I used to be, right?" he questioned, "I never slept either and if I did... it wasn't very well, but I had you to help me out with that." He frowned slightly before he pointed out the next fact, "You never went anywhere. He watched as she smiled softly at his reminder and then he gave her another one, "She doesn't have that, Laura, but she needs it. Everyone in SHIELD keeps her at arms length, even Nick, and she doesn't deserve that."

He watched his wife kneel down and she place her hand on his good knee as she spoke, "I'm not saying that she does or that you should do that to her, what I'm saying is that you didn't just pull her within arms reach, you practically dragged her in and smothered her, Clint..." He couldn't help the incredulous look that crossed his face. "Natasha is clearly the you that I first met, worse even, if I'm being completely honest. What would you have done if I had dragged you to a house with two children?"

"Run away..." he answered immediately before he sighed, "and I totally screwed this up, didn't I?"

To his relief Laura only gave a breathy chuckle as she placed a chaste kiss on his lips. "A little, but I'm sure there's a way to fix it. She just needs space, well...space and maybe a little less Star Wars," she joked as she jabbed her thumb in the direction of the living room.

Both he and Laura turned towards the room when they heard Natasha's sharp intake of breath. All they managed to see was the spy's arms reach out on instinct. The redhead snatched little Lila mid-air when the one year old decided to launch herself off the couch into a free fall. His partner's face never changed, it still remained indifferent while she held the baby about a foot away from her face, her hands gripped gently over Lila's sides.

"Whooooa..." came Cooper's amazed voice, "that was _fast_...I don't think daddy is that fast! You wasn't even lookin'!"

Natasha's gaze shifted to Cooper for a moment before her eyes landed back on the little girl. Her face slowly changed to something a little more perplexed, clearly uncertain about what she was supposed to do now that she was actually holding the child. He honestly couldn't help how hilarious her expression looked to him. Seeing the redhead hold his daughter out almost as though she thought Lila was diseased and she might catch something from her was the most amusing thing he had ever witnessed.

"Y'know that's not how you hold a baby, right Auntie Nat?" came Cooper's question.

"Um..." Natasha's baffled response came through and she looked a little terrified suddenly when Lila started wriggling around. It seemed his wife shared his amusement at the moment because she hadn't moved to interfere just yet either. Slowly his partner lowered the little girl back to the floor but doing so only caused Lila to clamber back up her legs and onto the couch for a repeat performance.

"Oh dear..." came Laura's remark, "she gets this from you."

Once more, Natasha's hands jettisoned out and snatched the little girl from the air as she gave her a mildly perturbed looked. The performance was repeated three more times before the spy seemed to understand that Lila thought it was a game, and then in hilarious fashion, she was once again holding the little girl at a distance and staring at her. A second later she pulled her in closer to her face, "Got a wild side, don't you, _malyshka_?" To his surprise Natasha's voice was gentle and seemed at least mildly amused with the antics despite the expression on her face that said otherwise.

"What's a muh-lis-ka?" came the confused voice of his son.

"Hmm?" Natasha glanced over at Cooper, "oh...it's Russian for little girl."

"Cool!"

Clint snickered slightly as Natasha's eyebrow quirked upward at Cooper's response. Clint had to cover his mouth to avoid a full-on laugh when she turned her head back to little Lila only to see that the child's lips were partially open with an enormous spit bubble forming between them. His partner looked absolutely horrified until Cooper started laughing.

"Yeah... she does that. Mommy says she'll grow outta it."

"Gross..." seemed to be the only thing Natasha could think to say as the little girl popped the spit bubble forming from her lips.

Cooper gave a full-belly laugh at her as he replied, "That's what I keep tryin'a tell everyone! Totally gross!"

Apparently little Lila thought it was funny too because she giggled away at the distorted face of the woman holding her.

"Good Lord..." his wife muttered under her breath, "this family is going to scar her for life. I better go get her before Natasha bursts an aneurysm."

It was all he could do to grab her arm and stop her. "Wait—" he told her as he pointed to Natasha and the children.

He watched as Laura glanced over and they both saw the crinkle in his partner's brow as little Lila started to pucker her lips and then open them over and over until she successfully made what Laura had deemed a 'kissy noise'. Natasha's vibrantly green eyes blinked a multitude of times before the corners of her lips curved upward into the first real smile since she had first arrived here. He imagined that smile came out against her will because Natasha typically hid her amusement from prying eyes.

Lila seemed more than a little thrilled to get the reaction and she wriggled and bounced and proceeded to do more 'kissy noises'.

Cooper was giggling, "She likes you."

Natasha only seemed a little baffled by that revelation. She was someone who wasn't used to people 'liking' her and he suspected she certainly didn't expect a baby to be one of the few.

"Boy, you're not good at this," Cooper noted, "you gotta do it back, Auntie Nat, that's what mommy does."

Clint almost snorted in an attempt to contain his laughter when Natasha's expression turned to one of panic. It only lasted a brief moment before she squinted. She gave the small girl the stink-eye before she finally pursed her lips a little. He almost couldn't believe it when her lips parted a second later and the smallest _pop_ came from her mouth.

Lila absolutely adored it as she waved her hands around and giggled endlessly.

"Well..." Laura cleared her throat slightly, "that I didn't expect..."

"She has that effect on people," he admitted with a smirk.

Seeing her chuckle at the one year old girl and her 'kissy noises' was one of the most mind blowing moments he had ever witnessed when it came to Natasha. Lila was starting it all over again, usually managing at least a dozen before the redhead would reciprocate with the tiniest _pop_ of her lips, and it went on for a good five minutes. Clint could only assume that she finally realized what she was doing when she placed the little girl back on the floor, patted her on the head awkwardly and told her, "No more." Lila didn't seem thrilled with it but she toddled away to sulk with her toys without much of a fight.

Natasha's gaze peered over at himself and Laura. Clint realized that _they_ were the reason she had stopped. She had realized even with the distraction of the baby that she was being watched and he knew for a fact that was something that irritated her to no end. And to be caught playing? He imagined that disturbed her more than anything else. He watched as Natasha removed herself from the couch _and_ the house, going to the solitude of the front porch while he sighed and rubbed his face in frustration.

"It'll be alright," Laura assured him, and though he wasn't so sure, he returned her small smile, "I'll go and try to talk to her, you go be with the kids." He almost wanted to tell her it was a bad idea but he figured that at this point it couldn't really hurt.

So Clint did as his wife wanted and slowly limped his way to the couch.

 **()()**

Natasha settled herself on the porch swing with her legs curled underneath her, staring out at the farmland and trees that surrounded her. She didn't even have time to think on anything that transpired before Clint's wife opened the screen door and followed her out. It seemed like she was asking permission with her eyes to join her on the swing and it felt more than a little rude to decline, so Natasha did the only thing that she could, and she gestured for her to sit.

"Clint can be a little brainless," Laura informed her and Natasha couldn't help but release a breathy chuckle at the comment, "and for what it's worth, I'm sorry that he threw you into this without warning you."

It was unsettling to hear her apologize for the man that she had been partnered with for the last two years, not when these were people she hadn't even known existed up until she woke up to them a week ago. She leaned her elbow onto the armrest of the swing as her chin rested on her palm. She didn't bother to respond to Laura's comment because it didn't really seem necessary, so instead she changed the topic. "You know, I suppose most people find this normal," she said softly, staring back out at the scenery, "but the truth is that I never believed people actually lived like this."

Apparently it was an odd thing to say because Laura seemed a little confused by it. "Why not?" and Natasha figured it was probably a fair question.

"I..." she hesitated with the answer, something that Natasha wasn't used to doing, and she chewed on her lower lip before she finally explained it, "I just didn't grow up this way." That was putting it mildly and given the look on the other woman's face, Laura seemed to think so too, even if the brunette probably didn't really know anything. It was unsettling how hard it was to remain neutral in Laura's presence, to keep the distance that she was used to. She just came off calm and soothing, and honestly, Natasha found it a little irksome while at the same time she found it endearing. "I've always been alone," she told her.

"Oh," and it just seemed more understanding rather than pitying when it came from Laura. Thankfully, she also didn't ask questions about it. Apparently if you were married to Clint, you learned to just take what you were given and not request too many details. "It doesn't have to be that way, you know that right?" came Laura's reminder.

"Maybe not..." Natasha agreed with an imperceptible shrug, "but I don't know what to do with—" She paused as she finally lifted her head up and glanced around, "All of—of this..." she finally admitted as she blew out a breath of defeat, "I wasn't made for simple."

If Laura was bothered by her words then it didn't show, instead she was wearing a calming little smile as she responded, "You did fine in there."

Natasha hesitated now as her next words got caught on the tip of her tongue. She pursed her lips for a moment, debating how she was supposed to reply.

"This isn't a mission, Natasha. You don't have to think everything you do over, in fact you don't have to do anything at all, you just have to be you."

Her eyes narrowed slightly in response to that before she gave Laura a confused look. "That's just it. I don't..." she stopped now and closed her eyes to thinking a little more clearly. Finally she shook her head and carefully removed herself from the swing as she headed back towards the door. For a brief second she glanced back at Laura who only seemed concerned by the abrupt departure. "There is no me..." she told her softly before she disappeared into the house.

"Nat?" Clint questioned as he looked up from the couch. His partner swiftly moved towards the stairs but she didn't look at him, she just silently and quickly moved up the steps and back towards the guest room. He looked over as Laura slowly came back into the house. He gave her a questioning look but his wife just looked a little sad and shook her head before she disappeared into the kitchen.

"Did Mommy and Auntie Nat have a fight?" Cooper questioned as he looked on in concern.

That made the situation even more uncomfortable. "No, buddy. Auntie Nat just doesn't feel good," he told his son to try and reassure him.;

Cooper was a little unsure and then he wandered up the stairs to follow Natasha, ignoring his father's comment to stop. He looked at her door questionably before he pushed it open and looked in at his Aunt. She looked more than a little surprised to see him and she was in the middle of putting something on one of the cuts on her arm so he pulled himself up onto the bed and watched her. "Do you fight bad guys too?" he questioned.

Natasha looked back at him, her eyes just a little wider with the surprise of his question. "Oh, uh..." she hesitated a little but she realized that was obviously Clint's job description in the eyes of his children, "yes..."

"So...you're not _really_ my Aunt, are you?" came the next question.

She glanced away at his question and gave a small shake of her head, "No."

"That stinks..." She gave him a sad smile at his response. "Does that hurt?" came the next question, and the kid certainly had a _lot_ of questions.

"Does what hurt?"

"Everything. You gots lotsa' cuts," he told her when she came over and sat on the bed next to him, "and your head is funny colors."

She frowned a little once more. "I'm okay," she told him with ease.

"I heard daddy say you saved him when you wasn't suppose to. Why wasn't you suppose to?"

Natasha pursed her lips in an instant because she couldn't exactly tell the poor kid that his father's life wasn't supposed to come before the mission. "Don't worry about that, Cooper," she told him softly as she gave him a sad smile, "he just meant he thought I shouldn't have. He was worried about me fighting the—the bad guys."

"Oh," and the kid shrugged and tilted his head in confusion, "but the bad guys always lose, right?"

She blinked a few times. "Sure..." she agreed.

"Can I still call you Auntie Nat?"

The kid certainly had a lot of questions but that one was the most surprising. She angled her head to the side slightly but she supposed there wasn't really anything wrong with it. "Why?" came her instant response, but he just looked at her strangely and she quickly corrected herself, "I mean...sure you can."

"M'kay," Cooper grinned now, leaned up, and she just barely managed not to flinch when he wrapped his arms around her in an hug. She had to remember that sometimes normal people _hugged_ and it wasn't something that she needed to flinch from. "Love you, Auntie Nat," he whispered in her ear.

Natasha just watched as he released her from the embrace and left the room. She had to blink a few times to keep any wetness from appearing in her eyes. Kids were oddly cathartic, even if she didn't really understand why he felt that way for her, or understand kids in general.

* * *

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


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